VICE

Writer/director Adam McKay is best known for comedies like Anchorman and Step Brothers. In 2015, he surprised audiences and critics with The Big Short, a “dramedy” about the housing market crash. That film led him to an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. He’s back with the same approach to tell the Dick Cheney (Bale) story. The film starts with his early days as a rowdy, trouble-making partygoer in Wyoming and his wife Lynne (Adams) threatening him to get his act together. The first half jumps back and forth from his early days in the Nixon White House as he is being groomed by the likes of Donald Rumsfeld (Carell) to present day serving as George W. Bush’s (Rockwell) vice president. It’s an unflattering approach to say the least as McKay tries to describe how Cheney became the man he was and how he connects it all to the Trump presidency.